Newcastle aims to take clean energy lead

Newcastle is being urged to build on 10 years of reducing emissions and developing clean energy technologies.

Newcastle council is hosting an Energy Town Meeting at City Hall tonight to inform the community about its 2020 carbon and water management action plan.

The plan is on public exhibition and sets strong targets to reduce carbon emissions and use water more wisely.

Council's environment and climate change services manager, Peter Dormand, says the region has achieved a lot since the first plan was introduced 10 years ago.

"But the important one here I think is that we build on that, put that forward with the opportunity for us to grow an entire new industry here," he said.

"There's a lot of debate about the carbon tax but if you look at the positive side of this the changes will come and if we're the first city and region to embrace this then we can have more of the CSIRO projects, more of the university projects."

Mr Dormand says a lot has been achieved since the last sustainability conference held in Newcastle in 1997.

"It was at that time that we learned that steel making would cease and that we needed to reinvent ourselves," he said.

"If you remember in 2000, the steelworks closed and the smoke stacks were demolished to have an open, clear horizon in Newcastle for the first time.

"That then, I believe, started this journey for us, where we set out to purposely become a centre for clean technology and clean thinking."

You have no doubt been hearing a lot about the Paris Agreement and know that it pertains to climate change, but are too embarrassed at this stage to ask for an overall explanation of what it's all about.